


Separated

by 1nsomnizac



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Burns, Gen, Medical Procedures, Non-Consensual Body Modification, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 04:50:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5653063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1nsomnizac/pseuds/1nsomnizac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are no longer on the banks of the lava floe, but it still hurts to breathe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Separated

It hurts when you breathe. It hurts when air is pulled into you. It hurt when your body hit the ash on the shore of the lava floe, arms and legs cut away. It hurt when you screamed and burning air blistered the inside of your mouth. It hurt when you looked up and saw the man who you knew the longest standing there, watching you as you tried to crawl up, away from that horrible heat, trying to use legs that were no longer there, an arm that was no longer there. It hurt to hear him condemn you, eulogize you, while he held the weapon that maimed you. It hurt to say the words that, in that instant were true. You hated him for betraying you. You hated him for turning Padme against you. You hated him for holding onto the Jedi and letting go of you. You hated him for everything. And then when you caught fire, and your hair burned and your skin was burned away, you hated him for leaving you in that agony.

  
You are somewhere else now. The pain in your skin is mostly gone, with the surface nerves. The pain within is still fresh, and refreshes itself with every involuntary breath. It is barely possible to think, and impossible to focus. The pain separates, tears you away from the world.

  
The light burns your tearless eyes. When you come to rest in the dark, there is a moment of near peace. Then white light shines on you. In that moment you hate light.

  
Something is beside you, around you. Droids, you realize. One reaches towards your torso and pulls something away. All of a sudden there is pain again. Scabs open along your body as the tatters of your clothes are pulled from burnt flesh. You twist and turn with pain. More scabs open up, on parts with enough nerves to feel pain again. It still hurts to scream.

  
The machines do not talk to you. or maybe they do, but noise seems far away. What is present is the pain. They cut into your body, move your body, clear the cauterized stumps of your limbs and lay the nerves bare in order to affix the prosthetic attachments. You flail as they work and they strap you down. Thought disappears and becomes separate.

  
The pain begins to die down. How long has it been? You cannot feel knives biting into your skin anymore. You cannot feel cloth against your body. You cannot look down; there is some kind of bevor on your neck. You feel the dumb, dull register of your hands telling you that they are closed into fists. You cannot feel anything else about them. You cannot tell the texture of the palm, nor can you feel the pressure of one finger against one another. You realize you will never know what anything you hold feels like. No, says a part of you, this is not real. This cannot be real. I have to feel.

  
You try to pay attention to the skin you have left, the sensations they feel. There is the weight of clothing on them, heavy clothing, and the weight of something on your chest and along your spine. but beside the weight, you can feel nothing. You are separated from everything else, you can no longer feel the world around you.

  
You try to quash the mounting feeling of panic, and you remember yourself. You have killed. You have killed… you had to make the choice. There was no other option. And Palpatine knew… No. Palpatine did not know. He said as much. But you would work together to save Padme.

  
Is she still on Mustafar where you left her? As the thought settles in your head, something sinks in your chest. You hurt her. You left the Jedi, you knelt to a liar, and you killed, and you did it so that you could save her. You sacrificed your old life so that she could follow you to a better one.

  
But she would not. She had listened to Obi Wan and not to you. She betrayed you and you attacked her. And that rage nearly consumed you. But you still love her. Oh, you would bear all this pain, just to feel the pressure of her embrace again. You would do whatever it took to make her love you again. All this pain you went through has meaning, if she still loves you. It still hurts to breathe.

  
Something above you catches your attention. It is a black shape against the floodlight. A pair of red-tinted eyes glow from within. As it descends, an anxiety fills your mind. That thing will swallow you. That thing will separate you, cut you off from the world.  
It locks onto the bevor. Another piece slides over it. It no longer hurts to breathe. You breathe in steady breaths as the table you are on rises.

  
Palpatine asks if you can hear him. You call him master. Though you are free from Tatooine, you’ve never stopped addressing the people you trusted as master. The Jedi won you in a bet, and you’ve been doing as they told you ever since. Have you ever not been a slave?

  
Once. When you married Padme. You ask your new master where she is. He tells you.

  
No one taught you how to grieve. What losses you’ve had have been violent, and violent has been your response. When your soldiers died on the field, when your Jedi friends died around you. When your mother died, still trying to tell you that she loved you, one last time, there was always a way to be angry, to be aggressive. You have been separated from everything. You are cut off from the Jedi, from your friends, from everything outside your suit. There is nothing left to pull you out of this nightmare.

  
Beside you, your new master grins as your hope crumples with the machines around you.


End file.
